I love Jeanne Kirkpatrick!
Posted on 12/29/2001 6:30:47 AM PST by veronica
He's vigorous. He's direct. At nearly 70, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is TV's newest stud.
Forget The Guardian's Simon Baker, Smallville's Tom Welling, or 24's Kiefer Sutherland. The sexiest man on television is a grandpop with a throaty laugh and a confidence so overpowering it's made entire countries go weak in the knees.
No doubt about it, Donald Rumsfeld is a stud muffin.
Oh sure, he's a bespectacled government bureaucrat pushing 70. But the secretary of defense has a quality that many women adore.
He's as self-assured as a bull in a cow pasture.
Next to this ex-Navy flyboy and self-made millionaire, humorless careerists are but empty suits, doubt-ridden heroes are boring, and sensitive New Age males look like big whiny babies.
Rumsfeld, in contrast, looks like a good time. In a recent interview, Larry King asked, "Secretary Rumsfeld . . . do you like this image? You now have this new image called sex symbol."
Rumsfeld laughed heartily and replied, "Oh, come on." But he seemed delighted, and later allowed that he could be a sex symbol "for the AARP."
He's direct, plainspoken, full of that quality John F. Kennedy so admired: vigor.
He enjoys sparring with reporters at news conferences. Exuding bonhomie, he gets his points across while revealing very little of what everybody is there to find out. These performances are among the best on television, depicted by political cartoonist Mike Peters as "Must See TV."
Rumsfeld is decisive, a quality Saturday Night Live recognized in a recent skit: The President is in a meeting, taking a call from boring Al Gore, who drones on and on while Bush's advisers point impatiently to their watches and Bush, a prisoner of his breeding, seeks a polite end to the conversation.
Rumsfeld strides in. Grasping the situation immediately, he grabs the receiver and barks, "Get off the phone, Al. Now!" A startled Gore hangs up.
Talk about a man of action.
In the Navy, Rumsfeld was a champion wrestler. Now, he hunts elk.
He's been around Washington forever - this is his second go-round as defense secretary - but it took a war to make him a celeb.
After attending Princeton University on a scholarship, he married his childhood sweetheart, Joyce, in 1954, served in the Navy, and did six years in Congress and four in the Nixon administration.
He was ambassador to NATO when President Gerald R. Ford called him back and made him the youngest defense secretary in the country's history. He wasn't well-liked. Over the years, he has annoyed people by ignoring criticism and pushing to get things done. He used to be called imperious. Now he's seen as determined.
He's also telegenic, which became apparent when the spotlight found him in September. The camera loves him. He's the media star of the war on terror.
He has reappeared on the scene at a time when popular culture is again embracing big-shouldered, go-for-it guys, from stoic Russell Crowe in the Oscar-winning Gladiator to bully Teddy Roosevelt in the best-selling Theodore Rex, to buff Will Smith as The Greatest in Ali.
Classical Roman virtues such as courage and determination, so passe in the high-flying '90s, are again in vogue.
Steely confidence is admired, in burly firemen, guys who attack armed hijackers with their bare hands, 19-year-olds who parachute into battlefields in the middle of the night - and straight-shooting Rummy, the senior with swagger.
Manly men, every one. It's good to have them back.
Sure, there might have been the occasional article about the looks of a leader contributing to his popularity among women, but it was left at a subliminal level for the most part, and not a common topic of discussion and comparison, dissected to death.
If you find Rummy sexy, fine. What I'm saying is that I doubt you'd have been talking about it in polite company until Clinton broke those bounds of decency.
Rummy is smart,sexy, a REAL man that stands up to the vile media, brillant, sexy,knows what to do and does it, sexy, great personality, sexy, perfect man for the job, sexy.... did I say SEXY yet???? tee hee...
Yep Rummy is a HUNK !!!!!
I personally see no problem calling someone sexy in polite company. Cinton did not invent sex - he only made it sound sleazy by his actions.
We are NOT talking here about having sex - merely pointing out that decent people DO have sex appeal in the decent kind of way.
GOD gave that gift to humans. Clinton managed to show us how badly it can be mishandled by Godless people!!
You mean the White House press corps?
I love Jeanne Kirkpatrick!
Seriously, she was truly great in the power of her logic and her forceful way of presenting her case, just like Rumsfeld. Did that make her sexy? No one thought in those terms in 1984. She was no plainer than Rumsfeld, though, she just served at a different time, pre-Clinton. It seems even some who should know better are jumping on the Rock Star bandwagon.
If, for no other reason, that we've adopted Chinese berets for the military and my hopes are fading fast we'll have the really classy accoutrement necessary for the entire nation to take a tumble and give it up for the Few, the Smug, the Sensationally Sexy Police State cum Globokop.
(High marks for the bomber vests at the Camp David roundtable, though.
Ooooh, baby ... don't go turning on the heat at Command Central. Let that GRU girly-boy Putin stick to suits ... we like our political leadership in lambswool and leather.)
It does my heart good you had to clarify ...
Regards, NewAmsterdam!
I'm usually ahead of the curve on these things. Like back in early 2000 when I nudged my father into voting for Bush in the primaries. He was a little hesitant then, but now thanks me for that. :-D
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